Complaint / Review
Bruso Desnoyers Funeral Services
May be stealing money from Medicaid ripoff

I work in the financial department at a County Nursing Home. We are rep-payee for a large percentage of the residents that live here.By this I mean we are responsible to receive and distribute the patient's money for their monthly costs to the nursing home and for their personal needs and savings accounts.

When a Medicaid (welfare) recipient passes away, and we are rep-payee, if no money is owed to the Nursing home, we must forward any money left in the pt.'s saving account to their department of Social Services. From there, it is first disbursed to the pt's funeral home if there is any outstanding funeral expenses. If there is no outstanding funeral bill, the money is returned to the pt's spouse or children. If there is no immediate next of kin, the Department of Social Services has an automatic lien on the pt's property and they keep the money. This makes sense as Medicaid has paid for welfare recipient's livelyhood for however long.

I had an unmarried resident pass away last month and we forwarded the balance of his savings, approximately $500, to the department of Social Services. A month or so later, this pt's mother called me and inquired about his money because he had an outstanding telephone bill.

I first asked her if he owed any money to the funeral home because if he did, the money would be gone. The mother stated no, that the funeral had been pre-paid several years prior to her son's admission to the nursing home. I told her that I would contact social services and find out if they could do anything for her.

I spoke with the Supervisor for long-term care at our Department of Social Services. She told me this pt's money was gone because the funeral home had submitted a bill to them for over $700.

I told her that was impossible because the pt's funeral had been pre-paid several years ago. She went on to tell me that EVERY Medicaid recipient's money goes to the funeral home; that there is ALWAYS a bill whether the arrangements were pre-paid or not.

She said "it costs more to bury someone than what it cost at the time they pre-paid". My argument was "But the funeral home has been collecting interest on that pre-pay money all this time". She said "It doesn't matter. Out of all of the deaths this year, I have only had two that we did not turn their money over to the funeral home".

I am shocked about this. Are all funeral homes ripping off millions of dollars that should have been recovered by Medicaid?